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Debunking Utopia: Exposing the Myth of Nordic Socialism?
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> "socialist-like features" in economy are often arguably beneficial.
No, they aren't. "I like this" doesn't make something economically beneficial on the whole.
> Think of the common example of the Scandinavian countries.
They have higher wealth as a result of capitalism and freer markets. They didn't become richer as a result of welfare statism. This was written for exactly this kind of bullshit. Socialism didn't make them rich.
Yes, I'm Swedish.
Their are 8 major parties competing for power. Two blocks and one outsider.
There is the "red-green" block consisting of the Social democrats, The green party and the Left party (formerly the communist party) These currently hold power with a minority of the vote, supported by the "opposition".
Then there is the "Alliance" made out of the Liberal party, The Moderates, The Center party and the Christian Democrats.
Then there is the third option, the Swedish Democrats, whom have been isolated due to being labled a "nazi alt-right" party by the state controlled media (they want to limited immigration and have fiscal responsibility) Currently polling at 20-30% of the vote, depending on who ordered the poll.
I'm guessing that the Swedish Democrats will be the biggest party after the 2018 election, with about 30% of the vote. This will breakup the "alliance" and create a new left-center block consisting of the: Social Democrats, Green party and Center party. Basically paving the way to hell with good intentions.
The future looks bleak.
If you're interested in modern Swedish political history I recommend reading this book: Debunking Utopia: Exposing the Myth of Nordic Socialism
"liberal" in the European sense is "conservative" or "libertarian" in the American sense.
>f liberals were to control the executive, legislative, and judicial branch for an extended period of time, I think we'd have a much brighter future and a better country.
if this was true, then California, Illinois and Louisiana would be ideal places to live. they've been ruled by Democrats for decades. but in reality, Chicago and Illinois have the highest rates of political corruption in the nation. about a third of Chicago's aldermen have been convicted of corruption and three Illinois governors in a row went to prison. California is falling apart with record crime, poverty and income inequality.
> BBB would have been the first step towards a more socialist society that works better for everyone, but the right killed it.
please name 10 nations where socialism has been effective. don't say the Nordic nations, because they were most prosperous under right-wing nations then stagnated under democratic socialism. https://www.amazon.com/Debunking-Utopia-Exposing-Nordic-Socialism/dp/1944229396
>Mass shootings are an issue (relative to many other countries)
really? let's look at the most violent nations on the planet { see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate }
the top 10 nations by per-capita violence are:
- El Salvador
- Jamaica
- Lethoso
- Hondouras
- Belieze
- Venezuela
- St Vincent and the Grenadies
- South Africa
- St Kitts and Nevis
- Nigeria
(I did not list the Virgin Islands, because they're under US control)
is there any data showing that these nations are ruled by conservatives in the American sense? Venezuela has been dominated by radical leftists for decades.
The argument I was making was that taxation is theft, not that having a society operating without taxes would be functional. However, it is true that it's hard to argue that something is possible without having evidence to back your claim. But isn't that how most things work at the beginning? It would be like someone arguing that the Earth circles around the Sun and not the opposite without a satellite to take pictures of the solar system. Not something easy to accomplish so how would you go about it?
Easiest thing would be to launch yourself in a rocket ship and point at the solar system and say "yeah, I was right", which is equivalent to pointing to a list of functional societies beyond a certain "threshold" (what threshold?) that don't have taxes [1]. And from the list, it seems there are some places with little taxation (maybe not 100% tax free) that do manage but, honestly, it's not really a very satisfactory proof. You need to go beyond an empirical understanding of the world (aka pointing at things to prove arguments) and develop a model that explains why things exist the way they do, integrated from the direct and indirect facts you observe in reality.
This would help you if, for example, you're unable to take a video of the whole solar system in motion to prove a claim. In that case, developing a model derived from direct and indirect observations that validate your claims and also disprove other flawed models, would put you in a good shape. At the very least you'd develop a scientific theory to be disproven as more facts are gathered.
So, for functional tax-free societies that at the moment we're unable to find (which doesn't mean they don't exist), what would that model look like? And what would the direct/indirect observations that validate it be?
I'd argue that such a model would be one of individualism and right to property (it's actually not exactly that but for now it will suffice). A society that acknowledges and respects people's intellectual and material property is a society where people have an incentive to create and prosper. On the other hand, a society that allows, or even worse, institutionalizes, theft is one that will not progress as much. And how would I go about showing facts that prove such a model? I would go and look for them! Or rather, read from people who did it for me [2]. (the book I cited debunks the myth of Nordic socialism by showing, among other things, how increasing regulations and the tax burden to support the ever growing welfare system only brings down economy and increases poverty)
I could also look at trends that show whether a system more consistent with my model, which again, is not one of no taxation but one of freedom and right to property (aka no theft), leads to more prosperous and thriving societies. [3]
So yeah, that's more or less how science works.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates [2] https://www.amazon.com/dp/1944229396/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_i_QV7TCCARTHYBAN66RXJM [3] https://www.heritage.org/index/
Alright so I did some more digging trying to find the stuff I was actually referring to and I'll admit I was confidently wrong but had good reasons for misremembering. The particular book in question is Debunking Utopia by Nima Sanadajani, who claims that the benefits found in Nordic nations are not to be found in their social welfare programs, but their cultural and racial homogeneity, and is some soft alt-right propaganda, grossly overstating how unpopular these welfare programs are in these countries, as well as conflating social safety nets with "socialism" and running with it as a net evil, even going so far as to say that Nordic descendants in America outperform their neighbors due to their racial differences.
Having said that, I was mistaken to think the book was a Cato publication. It is instead published by the Christian-y alt-right publishing company, WND books which only takes a cursory glance to tell what they're about. I was confused that it was a Cato publication because, firstly, it was endorsed by James Randolph in the Cato Journal in 2017 and Sanadajani spoke at the Cato Institute to a largely sympathetic audience in 2016. The only youtube comment shows that he's a bit of a hack misunderstanding his own terms, or purposely conflating them to disingenuously make a point.
Going deeper into Cato's own work on this is a bit more fair, where they argue for a higher corporate tax rate (even though they also argue by way of implication that because our economy outperformed the Nordic nations' then we have a higher quality of life which isn't true), and a whole host of other topics that tend to draw on the unintended consequences of their welfare policies without actually touching on the overall quality of life and education these countries have. They're a bit more fair, sure. But the unintended consequences, though real, pale in comparison the consequences we have from our own policies of reckless and haphazard social welfare policies that try too hard to appeal to laissez-faire idealism and populism rather than evidence based blends on how to actually alleviate poverty. Lastly, they seem to be more bent on crushing Bernie Sanders because these Nordic countries are still, at their core, capitalists, which seems a bit silly to me. If Bernie Sanders is arguing for a particular model of government but calls it the wrong thing, that doesn't mean he's wrong to argue for the model.
At any rate, I was wrong, I still disagree with Cato in some regards to these issues, and feel they give hacks and racists too much leeway just because they are the enemy of their enemy. But, I was still wrong and I own it. My bad.
WOW that's a lie.
Highest rates of abuse towards women in a developed country
High taxes and average wages triggered bank warnings over exploding personal debt
Productivity is substandard spelling trouble funding thew welfare state in less than one generation.
Excessive anti-depressives consumption http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/9789264183896-en/03/11/index.html;jsessionid=72onp8ie4ojr6.x-oecd-live-03?contentType=&itemId=/content/chapter/9789264183896-38-en&containerItemId=%2Fcontent%2Fchapter%2F9789264183896-38-en&accessItem...
Fallen from fourth-wealthiest country in the world to the fourteenth-wealthiest country in just 23 years.
Some of the highest inequality in Europe, only the top decile of earners own between 65 and 69 percent of the country’s total wealth. Basically the rich are paying for almost the entire welfare system.
Awful cultural norms like crappy tundra weather, awful food, piss poor housing availability, and a near impenetrable language.
> Ord har betydelser.
Lyft näsan från ordboken nu.
> Om ord tillskrivs vilken betydelse som helst av vem som helst blir konversation, meningsutbyte och utveckling i det närmaste omöjligt.
Reductio ad absurdum, sluta larva dig
> Jag vet att du inte vet vad planekonomin innebar eller att planekonomi och den långa raden av politiska utrensningar som skakade hela det ryska samhället inte är samma sak men än en gång, ord betyder saker. Planekonomin handlade i första hand om produktionsmål för tackjärn, järnmalm och kol, kritiskt viktiga resurser för industrialisering och sedermera kriget mot Tyskland. För det ändamålet var planekonomin effektiv.
Är du på riktigt?
Det är trivialt: Planekonomin i sig var slaveri, repression och massmord. Du kan inte stoppa dom sakerna i olika små fack och låtsas som att dom inte hör ihop även om det står på olika ställen i ordboken.
Det är skillnad på vad ordboken säger och vad utfallet blev.
Saxat rakt från wikipedia sidan om <strong>din fina femårsplan</strong>:
> the collectivization created a large-scale famine in the Soviet Union in which many millions died.
Vi pratar alltså om miljoner människor som helt enkelt dog som en del av planekonomin.
Men visst, "planekonomi" är ett ord som du kan rabbla fram. Grattis.
Här har du alltså egentligen diskvalificerat dig ur en seriös diskussion eftersom du inte har koll på grundläggande fakta i det du skriver och dessutom förringar du folkmord.
Nu är vi dock lustigt nog tillbaka till mitt ursprungliga inlägg där du har bevisat mig rätt på fler än ett sätt:
Det är precis samma mekanism bakom svälten i Ukraina 1932/1933, miljoner döda som försäkringskassans slöseri med skattepengar i dagens Sverige:
Folk tar helt enkelt dåliga beslut i kollektivistiska system. Dessutom leder det troligtvis till passiv och självgod dumhet ...
Sen vill du ha en separat diskussion huruvida den svenska utjämningspolitiken har skapat ekonomisk tillväxt. Det är nog en diskussion som är lite för komplex för dig med tanke på att du spyr ur dig kommunistisk propaganda från 1930-talet.
> jag kanske har en bakgrund inom ekonomisk historia?
Argument from authority, mera trams från självgode dig
Det är ju extra lustigt eftersom du dels inte kan din historia ordentligt och dels inte förstår grundläggande koncept som korrelation/kausalitet eller statistisk analys eftersom du skriver:
> Det jag däremot hittar är att de stater i USA som har högst andel människor med skandinaviskt ursprung är lite mer välbeställda än genomsnittet, dock har de fortfarande en genomsnittligt lägre hushållsinkomst än den i Sverige.
Jag pratade om en grupp (svenska invandrare i USA), då kan du inte börja jämföra hela stater.
Det här är ju pinsamt eftersom det var en av få konkreta saker som du har sagt men dessutom har du fel i sak eftersom enbart delstaten Minnesota (där flest svenskättlingar finns enligt denna karta) har en högre BNP/capita än Sverige. Dom andra relevanta staterna har ännu högre BNP/capita (North Dakota, Delaware, osv) ....
Hur var det med faktan nu? ; )
Det här är faktiskt ganska grundläggande saker ...
Jag orkar inte lista alla fel som du rabblar upp ...
> [Citation needed] - Jag tror du hittade på det här rakt av
Återigen bevisar du mitt första inlägg om tillit i samhället: "En tjuv tror att alla andra är tjuvar. En lögnare tror att alla andra är lögnare. Och agerar därefter."
För en djupare analys av just svensk tillväxt i relation till ekonomisk utjämning kan du läsa en bok (inte en ordbok alltså utan en bok som faktiskt har med ämnet att göra).
(Jag hittade också en förenklad online resurs här) [https://iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Sweden%20Paper.pdf]
> If Americans with Swedish ancestry were to form their own country, their per capita GDP would be $56,900, more than $10,000 above the income of the average American. This is also far above Swedish GDP per capita, at $36,600. Swedes living in the USA are thus approximately 53 per cent more wealthy than Swedes (excluding immigrants) in their native country (OECD, 2009; US Census database).
> Rather than being the cause of Sweden’s social strengths, the high-tax welfare state might instead have been made possible by the hard-won Swedish stock of social capital. It was well before the welfare state, when hard work paid off, that a culture with a strong work ethic and strong trust and social cohesion developed. As discussed above, the modern system has eroded some of these norms.
Jag tänker inte ta upp upp allt här men i princip hela boken går ut på att bevisa att ditt påstående är kategoriskt felaktigt:
> Traditionellt har vår ekonomiska utjämningspolitik varit den enskilt största faktorn till Sveriges ekonomiska styrka.
Nej, det är helt enkelt inte sant.
> Another popular notion is that Sweden´s phenomenal growth rate is closely tied to a period dominated by Social Democratic party rule and high taxes. In fact, between 1870 and 1936, the start of the social democratic era, Sweden had the highest growth rate in the industrialised world. Between 1936 and 2008, however, the growth rate was only ranked 18th out of 28 industrialised nations (Maddison, 2010).
> The rapid growth of the state in the late 1960s and 1970s led to a large decline in Sweden’s relative economic performance. In 1975, Sweden was the 4th richest industrialised country in terms of GDP per head. By 1993, it had fallen to 14th.
> Sweden developed state welfare provision during the first half of the 20th century, but the welfare institutions were financed by relatively low taxes. As noted previously, tax revenues were still only around 21 per cent of GDP in 1950 (Ekonomifakta, n. d.). Interestingly enough, the impressive social outcomes of Swedish society were evident already during this period. For example, in 1950, long before the high-tax welfare state, Swedes lived 2.6 years longer than Americans. Today the difference is 2.7 years (SCB database; US Department of Health and Human Services, 2009). It is also interesting that the relatively even income distribution in Sweden pre-dates the expansion of the welfare state.
> A comparison of historical rates of income inequality in Sweden, the USA, Canada, France and Netherlands shows interesting results. Already by 1920, well before the existence of a welfare state, Sweden had amongst the lowest levels of inequality within this group of countries. Roine and Waldenström (2008)
Du försöker förenkla saker genom att säga:
> När socialismen rotade sig på allvar i Sverige (dvs senare hälften av 1800-talet [...]
Du kan inte bara rabbla saker ur ordboken om när arbetarepartiet grundades (1881) utan du måste jämföra deras faktiska politik (staten/skatterna/"utjämningen" växte rejält först efter WW2 och var som störst på 1970-talet) med vad utfallet blev vid det tillfället, dvs. det gick gradvis åt helvete ekonomiskt ju mer staten växte, såpass att sossarna runt 1980-1990 själva började montera ned stora delar. I början (1800-talet) var sossarna ute efter andra saker som allmän rösträtt och kunde inte påverka ekonomin i stort. Dessutom påvisar jag tillväxt innan partiet ens grundades!
Till och med socialdemokraterna övergav själva sin egen socialistiska ideologi (dvs. dom gav slutligen upp sin lilla dröm om att äga produktionsmedlen) på 1980-talet( Kanslihushögern) eftersom statens svällande storlek med höga skatter och omfördelningspolitik dämpade just ekonomisk tillväxt. Så hur kan det vara den största faktorn till "ekonomisk styrka"? Trams!
Svensk kultur och hårt arbete byggde Sverige! Folkhemmet var en acceptabel kostnad (fram tills nu när andra ska åka snålskjuts).
När man nu ska förstöra den svenska demografin och kulturen som gjorde Sverige framgångsrikt så kommer det gå som det går helt enkelt.
Dom andra sakerna som du tar upp (bostadsmarkad, "klyftor", osv) är småpotatis jämfört med det. Precis som tackjärn är småpotatis i relation till folkmord.
Till skillnad från postmoderna historieförfalskare så förstod socialdemokraterna själva precis vad det handlade om:
Citat, Tage Erlander i Valfrihetens samhälle (Tiden 1962), s. 82
> Därför kan vi angripa arbetslöshetsproblemen på ett helt annat sätt, i medvetande om att det vi gör är en sak som i varje fall inte influeras av skiljaktigheter i hudfärg eller religion utan att våra insatser får sin motivering uteslutande med tanke på arbetslöshetsfrågan själv. Därför bör vi måhända vara litet mera ödmjuka när vi nalkas det här problemet än vad vi många gånger kanske är.
Ödmjukhet ... kanske vore något för självgode dig som silar mygg och sväljer kameler?
Ridå.
There's a book specifically on this subject that you might find interesting - <em>"Debunking Utopia: Exposing the Myth of Nordic Socialism"</em>. The author is Nima Sanandaji, a Swedish-Iranian/Kurdish author, and the president of the think tank European Centre for Entrepreneurship and Policy Reform. He is also a research fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies and the Centre for the Study of Market Reform of Education, both in London. He is a co-founder of the Stockholm-based think tank Captus, which he headed as CEO for several years until 2011. He has conducted research at Chalmers University of Technology, Royal Institute of Technology and Cambridge University, and holds a PhD from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm (in polymer engineering). His earlier work, "Scandinavian Unexceptionalism: Culture, Markets and the Failure of Third-Way Socialism", also deals with the topic.
The book is partially an examination of, and a response to, the discussions regarding the possibility and desirability of implementing the Nordic model of democratic socialism, as popularized and propagated by Bernie Sanders and his supporters during the presidential election, elsewhere, including the United States. The gist of the book's argument is that what American liberals like about Nordic societies is not a product of socialism, but rather has more to do with their unique culture—and free markets—than with their welfare state policies.
He argues that the culture in place in Scandinavia allowed it to achieve the bulk of its current prosperity and equality early on, before the introduction of third-wave socialist policies and the expansion of the welfare state in the second half of the 20th century. According to his data, everything that Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama, and other leading Democrats admire about Nordic countries already existed in the middle of the twentieth century, when these societies had small public sectors and low taxes. In fact, and I think this is one of the most interesting aspects of the book's argument, these outcomes seemingly can be found in the United States, too, among a specific group of people: Americans with Nordic ancestry. According to the book, today, measured by GDP per capita, Danish Americans’ living standards are 55 percent higher than those of Danes; living standards of Swedish Americans are 53 percent higher than those of Swedes; and Finnish Americans’ living standards are 59 percent higher than the Finns’. Even for Norwegian Americans, who lack the oil wealth of Norway, living standards outpace those of the Norwegians by three percent, which the author presents as an argument in favour of his thesis that the prosperity of the Nordics is not a product of their policies.
The overall line of argumentation the author presents along this and his other works is that there is nothing magical about the Nordics which, like most other countries, have thrived economically in periods of free market reforms and have stagnated when taxes and government involvement in the economy have increased.
Personally, I do not have a very strong opinion as I find the argument over whether this approach would benefit a country like the United States to be strictly academical, but I do find Sanandaji's writing and research to be rather convincing.
> Scandinavian countries is pretty socialist
Absolutely not.
>but we are still doing pretty good.
I recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/Debunking-Utopia-Exposing-Nordic-Socialism/dp/1944229396/
and listening to this podcast:
http://tomwoods.com/ep-717-debunking-utopia-exposing-the-myth-of-nordic-socialism/
Yes, good threads. Was away taking son to a pre collage event, and only had a chance to respond now.
Agree with you that there are perhaps degrees of socialism. Some favor strict definitions in which the government owns or controls the means of production. I like a more operative definition in which need is the basis for reward. A society for which from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs largely holds is intrinsically Marxist. So say we have Sweden with a 70% tax rate, in which your government controls a greater share of your earnings than you do, and has program after program that falls under from ability to needs, that society would be more Socialist/Marxist than capitalist. A society in which you, the individual, control the bulk of what you earn is capitalist. Progressive taxation throws a huge monkey wrench into the mix, because it applies a Marxist standard to the rich, and a capitalist standard to the poor.
You rightfully point to the intrinsic difficulty in testing out approaches, when you question how relevant is comparing the US to Germany. One can see trends, and study those trends over many societies over time, and my personal experience is the trend of socialism is to impoverish nations.
The answer to the Scandinavian people question is to contrast prosperity prior to socialism to that after, and I think we do see a decline in standard of living, which indicates for that population set the people are worse off. What socialists like to do is highlight the central abuses prior to socialism and gloss over the comparison of before and after. The essays I have read on this topic have convinced me that things got worse. This NR piece, and the book that goes into greater depth on the subject considers how socialism impacted Scandinavians. I heard the author on the radio going into this at length and it was well documented.
Should read the book debunking utopia
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Debunking-Utopia-Exposing-Nordic-Socialism/dp/1944229396
Norway isn't great because of welfare. Get a job and learn economics, you immature children. The government isn't going to create widespread prosperity and never has done so.
​
And here too. Not that facts actually matter to these economic illiterates. Nah, better pretend like prosperity came from the welfare state without actually learning the history.
Oh look, another socialist wingnut pointing to Norway and Scandinavia as proof "socialism works". Newsflash -- they're more lassez-faire capitalist than we are.
https://fee.org/articles/the-myth-of-scandinavian-socialism/
Read some books. I would recommend this one: https://www.amazon.com/Debunking-Utopia-Exposing-Nordic-Socialism/dp/1944229396/ref=nosim/nationalreviewon
Feel the BERN!!!
EDIT: doubt you'll read anything like a book. Here's a good cliffnotes so you can at least claim to be familiar with the subject you just tried to talk about.
https://stream.org/5-myths-nordic-socialism-mislead-the-american-left/
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